*Spruce up your Get Out The Vote (GOTV) postcards with rubber stamps from Rubber Hedgehog, a seller on Etsy.

Dedicated members of Tony the Democrat’s postcard-writing army will find many good rubber stamps out there for making and decorating their GOTV postcards.

Only one we’re aware of has a dedicated section of their website or Etsy shop for “Voting & Election Stamps,” and that’s Rubber Hedgehog.

As of Spring 2019, its Etsy store carries 40 images, including the voting penguin shown above. They have other strong artwork stamps as well as word stamps which say things such as “Take a friend to the polls”, “Vote like your rights depend on it,” and, simply,
“VOTE”.

They have other great images as well, but we at OTYCD have found their voting and election stamps perfect for our GOTV postcards. Recommended!

Learn to help friends and family who want to do more than just register to vote.

Sarah Jane here. We at OTYCD have encouraged you to talk to friends and family about voting, and make it as easy and as painless as possible for them to register, learn where their polling place is, and plot how they will physically get to the polls on Tuesday, November 6, 2018.

But what if they ask you about doing more than that? What if they’re excited, or concerned, or both about the direction the country is threatening to take, and they want to go beyond making sure they themselves are registered to vote?

May we humbly suggest you send them to this very blog?

Start by sending them to our page on The Most Important Thing You Can Do (we cheated, there’s actually four):

And if you want to suggest that they subscribe to the blog, we won’t stop you.

Also encourage them to visit postcardstovoters.org and volunteer to write Get Out The Vote (GOTV) postcards, using their own supplies.

Of all the things I (Sarah Jane) have done to push back against Trump since November 2016, writing postcards to voters has been the most satisfying.

I can write postcards anytime Tony the Democrat and friends have a campaign going, which is almost always. (The few times when they’re between campaigns, I prep postcards for future campaigns by decorating them with rubber stamps.)

Writing postcards to voters doesn’t require knocking on doors, calling people, or otherwise approaching strangers, which is terrifying to an introvert like me.

Let’s be clear, though. I do all that stuff, too, and I recommend it, but writing postcards to voters is something I can do whenever I want, for as long as I want, and I can set it aside if need be. I call it my civic knitting–each postcard is a stitch that strengthens democracy.

Also? New research shows that hand-writing postcards to voters is just as effective at getting out the vote as canvassing (physically knocking on doors), and sometimes more effective.

For more, see this June 22, 2018 piece from Blue Virginia called The Mighty Pen Prevails: In the Digital Age, Handwritten Voter Contact Is a Powerful Secret Weapon:

Helping eager friends and family learn who’s running for election and re-election in 2018 and find candidates to support is pretty next-level, but if you have the time and energy to do it, we at OTYCD encourage you to follow through.

Subscribe to One Thing You Can Do by clicking the button on the upper right of the page. And tell your friends about the blog!

Subscribe to Postcards from Kate, a nonpartisan project devoted to thanking politicians, journalists, and other public figures who do the right thing.

We know you love mailing postcards. The organization Postcards from Kate scratches your postcard itch and lets you do good at the same time. From the PFK ‘About’ page (bold is theirs):

“Every day or once a week, we’ll email the names and mailing addresses of at least one person deserving of our wholehearted thanks for taking an action which reinforces or supports our progressive values. We believe in equal rights, access to healthcare, just and fair governance, and freedom. We don’t think any party owns American values. And we believe kindness is the best policy.”

Postcards from Kate is named for Katharine Lee Bates, who wrote the song America the Beautiful.

Download and enjoy a great group of Resistance-themed postcard designs by Beverly Stokes.

You’ve shown OTYCD that you love postcard campaigns. Beverly Stokes, an American singer-songwriter, has designed many great postcard and is offering them as PDFs that you can download for free (or for a donation if you wish).

You can also suggest ideas for new postcards.

Her designs showcase on-point phrases such as, “America is Great, But This Is Some Bullshit,” “Proud Snowflake,” “Facts Are Non-Partisan,” “Remember the Bowling Green Massacre? Yeah, Me Neither.”

Stokes also did a series of postcard Valentines for public officials, such as “Keep Crushing It, Kirsten,” for Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, “I Love the Way You Represent Me,” for Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and “You Can Be Mine When You Grow a Spine,” for Republicans who need to feel the heat of constituent disapproval.

See Stokes’s website, Progressive Postcards (look to the lower left to find the donation form; scroll down if you want to find the form for sending her a design suggestion):

Then get to work. Choose two Democrats per chamber, one incumbent and one challenger for each. Work to make sure Democrats take the House of Representatives and do what you can to help Democrats win control of the Senate (this is a longer shot but it’s not impossible).

The Senate is the tougher get. The map favors Republicans. If the Democrats hold all their Senate seats and gain two, they’ll win control.

The Road to 2018 showcases incumbent Senate Democrats (and one Independent, Angus King of Maine) who are perceived as vulnerable.

Site is here: https://www.roadto2018.com

The Road to 2018 is one of Celeste Pewter’s projects. She encourages you to adopt a Senator by supporting him or her however you can–donating, phone-banking, canvassing, spreading the word.

The most endangered among those shown on the page include Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, who bravely came out against Kavanaugh the day before the cloture vote; Bill Nelson of Florida, who is in a tough battle with Republican Governor Rick Scott for the seat; and Claire McCaskill of Missouri.

Several strong Democratic challengers are aiming to push Republican Senate incumbents out of their seats. They include:

Once you settle on a few candidates to boost, go to ActBlue and donate, then visit their websites and see what other sorts of help they need.

Here are links to several past OTYCD stories on Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives. Most are challengers. This is far from a comprehensive list, and probably doesn’t include everyone we’ve written about who advanced to the general; this is just to give you ideas.

Same again here as with the Senators. Once you’ve made your picks, donate through ActBlue and contact their campaigns to see how you can help.

If you’re a regular OTYCD reader, it’s unlikely that Postcards to Voters is new to you. But! Tony the Democrat says that they’d need to recruit a few thousand more writers before they could consider assisting Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota.

This is not to imply Tony has a Heitkamp campaign lined up, or even under discussion; he simply said the postcarder army would have to add many more recruits before they could give her the help she’d need to get out the vote across the entire state.

So! How about recruiting new writers to the Postcards to Voters cause? Here’s the FAQ page for Postcards to Voters. Get fluent in these answers, and start convincing others to sign on.

Help Tony the Democrat and the Postcards to Voters army by committing to a recurring monthly $20 donation to sustain its good work.

If you read One Thing You Can Do, you know about Tony the Democrat and the Postcards to Voters army. We’ve written about it since the beginning, back in March 2017, before it was a thing.

Well, Postcards to Voters is definitely a thing now. As of mid-May 2018, it has more than 20,000 postcard-writing volunteers, who have helped more than 50 candidates in federal, state, and local races across America win runoffs, special elections, and general elections.

Recently, Postcards to Voters and Erika from Collective Vision, who creates and sells postcards designed with the Postcards to Voters army in mind, announced a new effort.

With the mid-term elections coming, Postcards to Voters needs to increase and strengthen its finances. It’s asking folks to commit to a sustained monthly pledge. The dependable funds will help Tony and friends recruit more postcard writers and accept larger address lists from candidates for office.

Erika at Collective Vision has a special offer for those who commit to a sustained $20 per month pledge by May 27, 2018.

If you sign on, you will receive a free, one-time gift of an 100-card set of a new, not-yet-released postcard design. (The rest of the world gets to see it and buy it in early summer.)

Some things to know about the $20 sustained contribution:

Committing to a sustained $20 contribution means you agree to give Postcards to Voters $20 every month, month after month, until and unless you cancel it.

Your pledge isn’t tax-deductible.

If you’re already giving Postcards to Voters $20 a month, you will receive the 100-pack of the new postcard design automatically.

You can’t do sustained donations through PayPal, sorry.

The 100-pack will be mailed to the billing address that you give on the donation page. If you need Erika to send the postcard pack to a different address, email her at postcards @collectivevision.us (but know also that she’s away between May 16 through 26, 2018).

If you offer a sustained donation of $40 per month, you will receive two 100-postcard packs, and for every additional $20 you can pledge monthly, you’ll get another 100-count pack.

You can cancel your sustained pledge at any time.

If you can’t commit to $20 per month, don’t feel bad! Every bit helps, even if all you can do is tell other people about Postcards to Voters and invite them to join.

Numerous ethics experts and lawyers warned that Donald Trump’s business entanglements would place him in violation of the Constitution the instant that he took office as president.

On Monday, January 23, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) brought suit against the newly sworn-in president. Please send thank-you postcards to the team that is pursuing the case.

The New York Times story on the suit is below, and the addresses are below the link. Note this intriguing paragraph, which appears deep in the article:

“Mr. Eisen said the legal team intended to use the lawsuit to try to get a copy of Mr. Trump’s federal tax returns, which are needed to properly assess what income or other payments or loans Mr. Trump has received from foreign governments.”